Lesson: Informal Imperative in Italian

The Informal Imperative is used:

• to give advice
• to give instructions
• to order to do something

We use Tu (you singolar) for singular and Voi (you plural) for plural

Ex. Sei troppo magro, mangia di più (You are too skinny, you should eat more) 

       Gira a destra e prosegui dritto (Turn right and then go straight)

       Smetti di piangere! (Stop crying!)

       Comprate una bottiglia di vino (You should buy a bottle of wine)

       Aggiungete lo zucchero e la farina (Add sugar and flour)

       Partite subito! (Leave now!)

As you can see, the Imperative borrows the Present forms, but we have to be careful:

Regular verbs in -are use the third person singular of the Present instead of the second (mangia instead of mangi) whilst regular verbs in -ere and -ire use the second person singular of the Present.

The second person plural is exactly the same then the Present.

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